My Other's Keeper
by TheSeer
Summary: AU. Sora's friends on Destiny Island never thought there was anything strange about him. Neither did Roxas' friends in Twilight Town. Of course, no one's ever seen them both at the same time, and there's blond hair dye in their bathroom. Het and slash.
1. Out of Luck

The alarm clock woke me up. I sat up in bed, rubbed a forearm across my eyes, and looked over at the clock. It was nine forty-five. "Shit. Sora! You set the alarm wrong."

_wha? Roxas?_ Sora wasn't a morning person. He was still half-asleep, and his voice was faint and blurry in my head. _What's wrong? The train's not till ten fifteen._

I sighed. "And if I got ready as fast as you can, that would be fine."

_Oh, yeah. Whoops. Sorry._

I did my best to shower at Sora-speed, got out, and looked into the mirror at the main reason I needed longer to get ready - milk-chocolate hair, the body's natural color. Sora's color. I sighed, snapped on a pair of disposable rubber gloves, and took my bottle of one-day blond hair dye out of the medicine cabinet. I didn't _have_ to color my hair, technically. I was still running the body, not Sora, whether it looked different or not. But it made me feel more like a different person, and more importantly, my friends all knew me as a blond.

The dye was also hair gel, so once I'd gotten the color in I pulled it into spikes - different spikes from the ones Sora liked - and peeled the gloves into the trash. Back in the bedroom, I got dressed. Closer-fitting clothes to make me look taller, long pants and black-and-white checkered wristbands to cover the skinny wrists and ankles. No pocket chain or extra belts, no gloves, no bright colors, different necklace. There were no sneakers ever made that could make those feet look non-huge, but I'd bought the ones that came closest.

I gave myself one last look in the mirror, and saw. . . not a _completely_ different person, but someone who might have been Sora's brother. Good enough. I went back to the bedroom, grabbed my wallet and Struggle kit, and glanced at the clock. Ten thirteen.

"Shit shit _shit_!"

_Sorry. Sorry!_

The train station wasn't that far away, but I doubted I could get there in two minutes. I still tried. I ran in, panting, and slapped the cash down on the ticket counter. "Ten fifteen (pant) Twilight Town (pant)"

"I'm sorry, it just left. I can put you on the ten forty-five?"

I nearly screamed. _Oh, man,_ Sora said in my head. _I'm sorry, Roxas. I didn't think._

I took a deep breath, then let it out. "It's okay," I said to Sora, though the ticket lady probably thought I meant her. I looked up. "Yes, please. The next train would be fine." She gave me my ticket, and I wandered over to wait.

_I'm really sorry,_ Sora said again. _I know how you've been looking forward to this._ I could run the body any time we wanted, but usually I'd have to pretend to be Sora anyway. Sora's friends on Destiny Island knew perfectly well he didn't have a blond-haired brother.

"The tournament's supposed to start at noon," I muttered, "and the train gets there at five after. They're usually late getting started. If I'm in the first match I might be in trouble, but I'm probably okay."

_I hope so._

Of course, I had half an hour to wait for my train. I took my Struggle bat out of the bag and fiddled with it.

"Hey." I looked over, and saw a redheaded guy sprawled on the bench a ways down from me. He was stupidly tall, had to be in college or something.

I said "Hey" back, but I gave him a look, like _why are you talking to me?_

"You look as bored off your ass as I am," he said, like he was answering my thought. "What's your name?"

_We're still on the island,_ Sora thought, _you should probably say. . ._

"Roxas."

. . ._Sora._

The guy nodded. "I'm Axel. What's with the Nerf sword?"

"I'm going to a Struggle tournament, over in Twilight Town."

He laughed. "You mean that game where they stick those little Velcro balls all over you and the other guy has to knock them off?"

"That _sport_," I said, "yes."

Axel laughed again. "Geek." I snorted and turned away. "Hey! I didn't say that was _bad_. Anyone who's not some kind of freak isn't worth my time. Normal is boring."

I was a freak, now? I nearly got up and walked to another bench. But then. . . I was a voice in some kid's head that dressed up so I could go pretend to be a real person. I couldn't really complain. "So what makes _you_ a freak?"

"Well, first of all. . ." He pulled out his wallet, and showed me his driver's license, pointing out the HEIGHT line. Six-five.

"Yeah, yeah, you're tall. . ." Then he pointed to the top right corner, where the date he'd turn 21 was printed in red. It was almost five years away. "Holy shit! Sixteen? You're _huge!_"

Great big grin. "That's what all the boys say." I groaned. If he'd been Hayner, he'd have gotten a punch in the arm for that joke. Of course, Hayner would have said "girls. . ." "Plus I'm a video game geek. I spend about five hours a day in the World that Never Was. You play?"

"No, but I've heard about it." It was supposed to be this weird MMORPG.

"It's crazy. Half the players in the World make up the most weird-ass characters they can, so even terminal freaks who act like themselves don't even make a blip. I love it. That's actually why I'm going to Twilight Town, to meet another Nobody."

"Nobody?"

"Characters from the World are called Nobodies," he explained. "The word gets used for the players, too."

"You're meeting someone you met online? What if he's a weirdo?"

He laughed. "Hello? _I'm_ the weirdo. Got it memorized?" He had a point. "Anyway, we've been friends for like three years." He leaned forward on his knees. "So what about you? If this Struggle thing is a sport, why aren't your parents coming to watch?"

"My parents barely know I exist." I wasn't whining, it was literally true. My parents - Sora's parents - had no idea their son's body had two people in it. To them, Roxas was an imaginary friend Sora had when he was little. "I've got some friends in Twilight who'll be there."

"Sorry. Crappy family can really suck."

I felt guilty for bad-mouthing Sora's parents. They were great to _him_. If Sora and I had been twins instead of sharing a body, one of them would have driven me to Twilight Town and stayed to cheer me on. "It's not so bad," I said. Then, inspired by my thoughts about twins, I said, "My brother's cool."

"Older or younger?"

I invented quickly. "Um, younger. By about six minutes."

_Hey! Why do you get to be older?_

"Kind of annoying sometimes," I added, "but pretty cool."

"I used to have a brother," Axel said casually. "But he burned alive when I set the house on fire." My jaw dropped. There was silence for about three seconds. Then Axel burst out laughing. "Oh, man, you should have seen your _face!_ Burned alive, I'm gonna have to remember that one."

He'd been _faking_ it? "Freak!"

"Damn right." Sora started giggling in the back of my head. Reluctantly, I started laughing, too. The train to Twilight Town pulled up and came to a stop. "Finally! This is yours, too, right? Come on."

Axel and I hung out all through the train ride. When the conductor announced Twilight Town, I said, "I need to run when the train stops, I'm late."

"Here." Without even asking, he pulled out a pen, grabbed my left hand, and scrawled an IM name on it. "See ya online, freak." I waved and took off.

Twilight Town built their train station on the top of a hill, which is crappy when you're running _to_ a train, but good running _from_ one. I skidded into the square where the tournament was. "Ref!"

The guy turned around, and recognized me. "Roxas!" I smiled - when you live behind someone else's face, having someone look at you and say your name is a cool thing. "Thought you weren't gonna make it. You're up in two! Blue side."

I was still in time. Quickly, I strapped on the harness that would hold the scoring balls, and put on my sweatband - acidic dye-sweat in your eyes in the middle of a match is not fun. I found my friend Hayner by the ball bins. "Hey, man," I said. We bumped fists. "Get my back, would ya? Blue." We started sticking the Velcro-covered blue balls on the circles on my harness.

"Man, you missed it - Seifer got creamed!" Hayner crowed.

"By you?"

"Even better - by a rookie! Some tall kid from out of town, with no rating." This was a regional open competition. New players were welcome, but usually they lost.

"Ha! Wish I'd seen it. Twenty-eight," I muttered, counting balls, "twenty-nine, thirty."

"I got twenty. You're set. Good luck, man!"

I climbed into the ring. My opponent was a girl, which was rare - but she was taller than me and held her bat like she knew what she was doing.

"And now," the ref shouted to the crowd, "for the third match of the first round. Wearing the blue points, with a rating of 1472, Roxas of Destiny Island!" Cheers (and a couple boos) from the locals. I spotted Pence and Olette in the crowd, and waved. "And wearing the red points, with a rating of 1245, Beatrix of Alexandria! Take your marks."

We stepped into the middle of the ring and tapped swords. "Good luck," she said.

"You too."

"On guard!" She put her empty left arm forward and held her club back - a shield-type fighter, ready to sacrifice the points on her left arm to protect the rest of her body. I took a low stance and put both hands on the club - if I could push past her guard she'd be wide open. "Aaaaand. . . STRUGGLE!"

It wasn't much of a match. She had good reflexes, and she was plenty strong - my idea of breaking through her guard didn't work. But she couldn't get a hit on me at all, and I stripped her left arm and leg clean, even popping some of the balls high so I could catch them in midair. Any ball on your harness counted for your score, whether it was one of yours or not.

"Time!" We separated, and counted our balls into the scorer's bins. "And it looks like the winner is Roxas, fifty-three to thirty-nine!"

Beatrix looked disappointed, but she came over to shake my hand. "Good match."

"You too. Shield style is fine, but work on attacks and parries, too."

"Right. Thanks."

I climbed up into the stands and found my friends. "Hey, guys," I said. "Hayner told me about Seifer's match. Too bad I wasn't here to see it."

"You missed Vivi's match, too," Olette told me.

"Vivi? Really?" Vivi was little, still in elementary school. He usually hung out with Seifer's crowd, but he wasn't a bad kid. "How'd he do?"

Pence shrugged. "About like you'd expect. He was up against the top-ranked guy." I winced. "Now Hayner's gotta fight him."

I looked down, and saw Hayner in the red corner, opposite a guy who had to be pushing the tournament's age limit. "Everyone thought you were going to miss your match, Roxas," Pence said over the ref's introductions. "What happened?"

"I set my alarm wrong, and missed the train." I looked over at the board. The guy was named Setzer, and rated nearly 1600.

"On guard! Aaaaaand. . . STRUGGLE!" Setzer's bat promptly shot out and snipped two balls off Hayner's chest.

"Ouch, that was fast," Pence said. "Come on, Hayner!"

"Get your guard up!" I shouted. Hayner probably couldn't hear me, though. When I was fighting, the crowd was always just a vague roar. "Defense! Wait for it - the leg! The leg!" Hayner saw the opening, too. A blue ball bounced out of the ring. Apparently angry at his mistake, Setzer went all out. Hayner fell back, losing points from his arms and legs. Then Hayner managed to skid past a parry and knock a whole line of balls off Setzer's chest. "All right, that's it!" I called. "Hang on, watch for your openings!"

"Is he winning?" Olette asked.

"Nope," I said, keeping my eyes on the match. The two clubs were locked, guard to guard. Hayner wasn't big enough to win that kind of fight. "He's down by about four. . . whoa!" Hayner went down on his back, scraping off the twelve untouched balls there, and Setzer followed up with a lunge that cleared half his chest.

"Oh, no!" Olette said.

I was on my feet before I realized it. "That was a trip! FOUL!" The crowd noise turned angry. Hayner was shouting something, too, and the whistle blew. The ref consulted with his spotter on the other side of the ring, and blew the whistle again.

"Setzer is disqualified, for illegal contact leading to score. Hayner wins!"

"What happened?" Pence asked.

"The guy cheated," I said. "He tripped Hayner with his foot."

Hayner didn't look happy with his win. He dumped his balls into the bin and stormed into the stands. "That ass! So that's how you get your rating above 1500. He wasn't even losing." He slumped into his seat. "That was not how I wanted to win."

"I guess I'm up again," I said. "Gotta go."

I was blue again, according to the board. I caught the ball boy returning balls to the bin, and started taking them off his hands. The kid helped me on the ones I couldn't reach. As I was getting ready, I tried to get a glimpse of my opponent, but I only saw a tall, red-dotted back leaning over the bins.

The ref came over. "You ready, Roxas?" I nodded. He looked over, and got an okay sign from the bins. "Okay. Let's have a real fight, huh?"

We went to our opposite sides of the ring, climbed in, and looked up. We froze, staring at each other. "All right, folks," the ref said, oblivious to our shock. "time for our second semifinal match. In the blue points, Roxas!" My opponent mouthed my name, as if he didn't understand. "And in the red points, Riku!" If it wasn't for the sportsmanship rules, I'd have been swearing my head off. In the back of my head, Sora was staring like a stunned cow.

We'd been caught.

"Take your marks!"

We stepped forward and touched bats. "It is you," Riku said. "What's going on, Sora?" I just shook my head. There wasn't time for an explanation even if I had one. Maybe I could convince him not to tell anyone.

"On guard!"

Riku held his club high and back beside his head, the same guard he'd used in wooden swords when we were kids. He'd almost always won. Automatically, I took the low, two-handed stance we had used back then, one I still liked. Riku smirked. "No wonder Kairi said my next match would be fun."

Sora's and my reactions to that were unanimous and together: Shit! _Crud!_

"Aaaand STRUGGLE!"

Surprised or no, Riku was obviously playing his best game. He blocked my first attack, and his counterattack scored two points off my arm. If I hadn't jumped back it would've been more.

In the stands, Hayner and the gang were cheering my name. _My_ name. I pushed away the thoughts of how I was going to explain and got my head in the game. This was Riku, he knew how to beat Sora. So, don't fight like Sora.

I switched to a one-handed stance, club forward like a fencer. Riku parried twice and then my lunge knocked the ball off his left shoulder. He counterattacked, scoring one back, and I switched to my left hand. (Sora and I were both right-handed, because our body was, but I'd taught myself to Struggle with either hand.) Suddenly facing a southpaw, Riku was thrown off. I scored two off his chest.

Riku backed off, realizing he didn't know my style after all. While he hesitated, I dropped my knee onto one of the balls I'd scored off him, sticking it to the velcro. I went for another, and he tried to attack while my knee was bent.

I was ready for him, of course. Oldest trick in the book. That one cost him half his right leg.

However good Riku was with wooden swords, at the game of Struggle he was a rookie. Once I had the point advantage I switched to shield style, like Beatrix had used against me. Frustrated, he pounded at my forearm like hitting it meant diddly, once the three balls there were gone. In the end, the crowd was holding its breath waiting for the score, and so was Riku, but I knew it before we counted.

"Forty-four to forty-two! Roxas is the winner!" There. Sora could never have done that. Maybe now he'd listen when I told him. . .

"Sora!"

I winced. "Don't call me that." Sora's friends had already heard "him" called Roxas; the last thing we needed was for _my_ friends to hear me called Sora. "There's a break before the finals. Come on, there should be a place in the Tram Commons we can talk."

"What's going on, Sora?" he asked. "A fake name and a disguise? Are you trying to get around a ban or something? I didn't even know you played Struggle."

I took a deep breath. "I'm not Sora."

He shoved my shoulder playfully. That always made Sora smile, but I bristled. "Of course you are," he said. "You can't think I wouldn't recognize you, I've known you since you were two. And Roxas is just your name mixed up, with an X thrown in."

"No, I mean - Sora's in the back of my head, right now. I'm someone else." Riku looked baffled. "I come to Twilight Town because no one knows Sora here. If I want to do anything back home I have to act like Sora."

"So this is some kind of escape thing? You pretend to be someone else to deal with stress?" I growled. If he hadn't been Sora's best friend, I swear I'd have slugged him. "No, it's okay. Lots of people do stuff like this, it's just that they usually do it on the internet. It's a little weird, but whatever."

"It's not _pretend_, Riku! I'm. . ."

I heard the ref's voice, faintly, calling "Contestants, prepare for the final match!"

"I gotta go," I said. "Hayner already won the semifinals on a DQ, if he wins finals on a forfeit he'll be pissed. Just, let me tell Kairi about this myself, okay?" I started back toward the ring. Over my shoulder, I called, "And don't talk to my friends!"

"And, we're coming up on our final match, folks!" the ref said as Hayner and I helped each other get ready. "In a pair of surprising upsets, the top two rated contestants have both been eliminated. . ."

"What was up with that guy?" Hayner asked.

"I know him from the Island," I said. "He didn't expect to see me here."

"Well, you beat the guy who beat Seifer. And now I'm gonna beat you, and we'll both have bragging rights."

I grinned. "Yeah, right. Just like last time." In the last tournament I'd faced Hayner in the first round, and creamed him.

"Come on, buddy." I bumped fists with my best friend - and saw Sora's best friend watching us. Suddenly I remembered I'd borrowed that gesture from them.

_Maybe we should have just gone along,_ Sora said nervously. _Pretended it was a game._

"I'm not gonna pretend to be a game for that jerk," I muttered, climbing into the ring.

_Roxas! He's my friend. He doesn't mean to hurt your feelings._

"Then I'll teach him better."

"Take your marks!"

I made sure to give Hayner my best game. It would be worse than forfeiting, otherwise - once I'd let Sora take over and fight him, just in a random practice fight, and he'd gotten pissed at me for "going easy on him." He had an aggressive style - he figured it didn't matter if you scored two off him if he scored three off you at the same time - and he'd definitely been practicing. He made a close game of it, but I beat him thirty-five to thirty-one.

The medal ceremony was pretty awkward. Riku got the bronze on points - Setzer's DQ counted as a zero, though forty-two was a good score for a loss anyway. He and Hayner were on either side of me, giving each other weird looks as the ref put the medals on.

"Head over to the usual spot?" Hayner offered, when it was done and the crowd was dispersing.

Riku put a hand on my shoulder. "Wait a minute, um, 'Roxas,'" he said. "Can I talk to you for a bit?"

I pushed his hand away, but not roughly. "Catch up with you later, Hayner," I said. We went up into the rickety temporary bleachers, quickly emptying of people. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "I really don't care about this. You're my best friend, Sora." I rolled my eyes - I wasn't his best friend _or_ Sora. "I was there when you were four and you ran down the street naked with your underpants on your head." Which one of us _had_ that been? I barely remembered it at all. "After that, this is nothing. Just, don't get too into it, okay? I don't want you to ever change."

Don't get too into it. He really did think I was a game, something Sora would put away at the end of the day. "You're an arrogant son of a bitch," I said.

Hayner would have growled and swore back, and maybe shoved me, and five minutes later we'd have forgotten it. But Riku didn't know me - he was used to Sora, and Sora has all the fiery temper of lukewarm porridge.

He stiffened, and he gave me that arrogant smirk he uses when he wants to hide his feelings. "Fine. Have fun with your new friends." And he walked off.

_Riku!_ Sora shouted, but not out loud. I kept control. _Roxas, call him back! Why did you say that?_

"Because it's true," I muttered, lips barely moving. "He just assumes you won't get mad, whatever he does. And maybe _you_ won't, but _I_ will."

_He thinks he's not my friend any more. . . _

"He does not." Then, more gently, "Honest, he doesn't. He's just mad. He'll get over it. And maybe we'll even pound it into his head that he never fought with you to begin with." But he wasn't cheered up. Everyone thinks Sora's happy all the time, but it's not true. I mean, yeah, he's happy _most_ of the time, but when he's not he usually hides it. Riku and Kairi can sometimes tell, but he and I have the same heart. He can't even start to keep secrets from me.

I just sat there for a while, rubbing my shoulders. It was the closest I could come to giving him a hug, which is what he wanted.

Someone sat down beside me, and I heard a quiet girl's voice say, "Roxas?" I expected to see Olette, but when I looked up it was Kairi. "I watched you in the tournament. All three matches."

"Kairi, just let me explain."

"You don't have to," she said, in that gentle way she has sometimes.

"I think I do." Riku thought _he_ got it, too, after all. "I'm not. . ."

She put a hand on my shoulder. "No, really. We thought there might be something like this." Really? We who? "Roxas," she smiled at me, "my name is Namine."

My mouth dropped open. "Wait, really? You're - you're like me?" She nodded. So I kissed her.

I got kind of into it, actually. Enough that when I finished, Namine was blushing, her cool sweetness flustered. Then her mouth turned up into a teasing grin that just had to be Kairi. "Well, that answers the question of who the horny one is."

"I, um. Sorry."

"Don't be." She ran a hand behind my neck. "The hair looks great." And she pulled me down for another kiss. It definitely felt different. I don't know how I'd missed it before, unless it had all been Kairi up till now.

"Wow, this is kind of kinky," I said afterward. "I feel like I'm having a threesome."

"Make it four?"

"Um. Well, Sora's kind of bummed right now, about Riku."

"Really? Riku didn't seem to be taking it badly."

"He acted like I was a. . . a _character._ He pissed me off, and I said some things."

"Oh." She thought about that. "Can I talk to Sora?"

"Sure." I closed my eyes, and imagined grabbing Sora's hand and pulling him past me.

Sora opened his eyes and tried to smile. "Hi, Kairi."

"Hey. You okay?"

"Sure! I'll just get Roxas to apologize, and Riku will get over it." He wasn't as confident of either of those as he tried to sound.

"Want a hug?" He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed gratefully. Then she kissed him, and he stroked her hair gently as he kissed back. "That makeover really works," Kairi said. "When you look like that, it feels like you're borrowing Roxas' body, instead of the other way around." She paused. "Namine says she'd like to draw you - him - um, Roxas Form."

Sora laughed. "Sure! I didn't know she drew. Well, I guess it's fair, because you guys didn't know Roxas played Struggle or anything."

"Speaking of which," she said quietly - no, that was Namine now. They seemed to switch faster than we could, and more often. "I think trips to Twilight Town are supposed to be Roxas' time, right?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"Well, you go let him spend time with his friends."

"You could come with us!" Sora offered. It wasn't a bad idea. I was looking forward to seeing Hayner turn green.

"No," Namine said, "I think I should go find Riku. I'll try to talk to him on the train. I'll see you two later, okay?" And she gave him a peck on the corner of his mouth, and stood up.

"Bye, you two. See you back home." Sora grabbed my Struggle stuff and climbed down the bleachers, jumping from seat to seat. By the time we hit the bottom I was in control again, which was good, because Pence was waiting for me.

"So who was that?" he asked.

"My girlfriend. Namine." _God_, that felt good to say. "She lives back on the Island."

"Awesome. You never mentioned her before - is she new?"

"Sort of, yeah. I mean, she's been around, but it wasn't really official."

"Hey, congratulations!"

Over by the burger stand, I saw Axel, and a nervous-looking blond guy with an instrument case. Axel waved, and I waved back with my Struggle bat. He laughed.

I felt sorry for Sora, but even Riku couldn't wreck this mood for me (though he'd given it a good try.) I had friends, I had (wow) _two_ girlfriends, and, most amazing of all, there were more people like us. I might be a freak, a voice who dressed up and pretended to be a real person, but at least I wasn't the _only_ freak.

"C'mon," Roxas said. "Let's go find Olette and Hayner."


	2. What Was Revealed

It was the next day, Sunday. Sora washed the blond out of our hair, put on the goofy big shoes, and rowed out to the play island.

Riku was sitting under the paopu tree, watching the ocean. I'm sure he heard Sora coming, but he didn't turn around until Sora tossed a wooden sword practically in his lap. Sora was carrying another. "It's not a rematch," Sora said, "but if you want to lose again, I'm game." He took his stance.

Riku looked at him for a minute, then chuckled and stood up, holding the sword. "You've never beaten me twice in a row in your life." He lunged at Sora, and the two swords met with a wooden clack. They struggled for a minute, and Sora got pushed back. Riku followed, making Sora recover back onto the bridge. They were both more careful about defense than I ever was in Struggle - those wooden things friggin' hurt. "So," Riku said, "not mad at me anymore?"

"I never was mad at you," Sora said, trying a riposte. "But I'm sorry for what Roxas said. It wasn't true."

Riku blocked, and his own counterattack made Sora roll to the side to get away. It was a risky move; Sora came up with his back heel hanging off the edge of the bridge. "I remembered last night, you used to talk to an imaginary friend named Roxas, back before Kairi moved here."

"I never said he was imaginary," Sora panted. He ducked a swing and lunged at Riku's stomach.

Riku parried him, but stepped back. Their swords locked. "I also remember thinking Roxas was smarter than you," Riku said, and tripped Sora off the bridge.

I'm sure he was just trying to make Sora fall to the boards, but he tried to twist out of it and made it worse. He tripped over his own feet, then Riku's, and then he was windmilling at the edge of the bridge. I would have closed my eyes, but Sora was the one in front, and they weren't my eyes just then. I remember one moment of Riku's face, just starting to be surprised, as we tipped over backwards, and then Sora grabbed, and their left hands clasped, and they went over together.

The water was about thigh deep for Sora or me, and the soft sand on the bottom probably wouldn't have hurt even if there hadn't been water. The two of them landed on their butts, came up gasping, and looked at each other. I actually started laughing first. The look of dumbfounded surprise on Riku's face was just priceless, and from the feel I guess Sora looked the same way. My laughing made Sora's mouth twitch, and they both cracked up.

Even laughing at his own stupidity, Sora never gave up a chance to win. He swung.

_Clack._

These two knew each other way too well.

"Kairi believes you, you know," Riku said. The fight had almost no footwork, now - the water was more than knee deep even on Riku.

"She told you that, huh?" And then he thought to me, Bet she didn't tell him about Namine, though.

_You two talk too much,_ I said. _If you'd just shut up and saved your breath this'd be over by now._

Riku smirked. "So, if you're two different people, which one is dating her?"

Sora was too busy to be embarassed. He just said, "Both of us."

Riku snorted, and his eyes tightened. "Kinky." And he moved like he was going to lunge.

_It's a feint!_

But Sora was already trying to recover, and he staggered in the water. Riku's sword banged him on the knuckles, and he was disarmed. Then all he had to do was put his sword tip to Sora's breastbone and push. Already off balance, Sora toppled back into the water.

When he opened his eyes, Riku was staring down at him, frowning. "What?"

"Either that was not the same person who fought yesterday," Riku said, "or there's someone you care about enough to make you throw a match against me. One way or the other..." I felt Sora grinning. Riku grabbed his hand and pulled him up, then grabbed the other sword before it floated away.

They waded over to the ladder, but when Riku started to climb Sora grabbed his elbow. "Wait a sec."

"What?"

"Roxas is gonna apologize."

_What? He had it coming! He talked to me like I didn't exist._

"Roxas."

_ I don't hear him apologizing._

Sora folded his arms.

_Okay, okay._ I let myself get pulled to the front. "Sorry," I said.

_Mean it._

Bossy little brat. But I sighed and looked at Riku. He was bemused, watching us. Sora and I argued all the time, but it was private. Riku had never heard anything like this, at least not since we turned six. There was no more hint he thought Sora was faking it or making it up. Riku looked like he had when he'd first seen Tidus' newborn brother, trying to act cool and not let on he was fascinated. And I didn't really dislike him, he just got on my nerves. A lot. "I'm sorry," I said again. "I knew you'd think it was Sora, saying that stuff. That's why I said it."

"It won't work again," he said. Which, when you think about it, was basically an apology of his own. He turned around and climbed up to the island. Sora took control back and followed him up. "So," he said, pulling off his waterlogged sneakers, "how long have you been Struggling?"

"Um, it's me again. Sora."

"Oh."

"Roxas met Hayner and them about three years now, and it was Hayner who taught him to Struggle. I mean, it wasn't hard for him to learn, he's got the same muscles as me, and some of those matches when we were kids were him anyway." Sora copied Riku and took off his shoes and socks.

"What's it like when you're being Roxas?"

"You mean when he's in the front? It's like... it's like watching a movie, basically. I can see out the eyes and feel what the body's doing, but it's not me doing it. I can sort of talk to Roxas in his head, but that's it."

"Huh. So whatever one of you does, the other one's watching? No privacy?"

He blinked. "I never thought of it like that." He scratched his head. "Sometimes when Roxas is reading I sort of go to sleep. So I guess we could get privacy, if we wanted to."

"I guess if you can share Kairi, you really don't care, though. Or is that easier, since you're..." He made a vague gesture. "...together?"

"Sort of," Sora said. "I mean, it's not like we could date different people. It'd be like cheating."

"What, I have to treat you like two people and she doesn't?"

"Huh?"

"To call that cheating, she'd need to blame one of you for what the other one does. Right?"

"Um, I guess so," Sora said. "Except we're both dating Kairi." Another little bubble of irritation that Namine hadn't fessed up. "So it doesn't matter."

"Sure," Riku said. He pulled off his shirt and spread it on the paopu trunk. "Your clumsy butt got me soaked."

"Hey! You tripped me!"

"Neither of us would have gone over if you hadn't tripped over those navigation hazards." He pointed at the big goofy shoes.

"Whatever." Sora looked at Riku, shrugged, and stripped off his own shirt to lay beside Riku's. They'd be dry after an hour or two in the sun.

Riku stretched him out on the grass again, looking up at the clouds. Sora plopped down to sit beside him. "Want a race, maybe?" Sora asked.

"Eh. Maybe later. Sandcastles?"

"Nah." Sora bounced his bare feet on the grass. "Go swimming?"

"What, again?"

Sora laughed. "You don't have to go in face first, this time." But Riku didn't move. Sora shrugged and let himself fall over backwards. "Pretty clouds." His head happened to fall close to Riku. I expected him to complain about Sora's hair tickling his ribs.

"So what did Kairi say when she found out?"

"She had a good idea already, actually."

_Don't say that. He'll wonder why she guessed_.

_Good,_ Sora thought back. Then he thought of something that made him laugh and blush. "She said 'Now I know Roxas is the horny one.'"

Riku laughed. "So, what, when I saw you two sucking face in the Secret Place last week, that wasn't really you?"

No, it hadn't, but Sora didn't answer. "We both love her, of course," Sora said. "It's just, Roxas is... more into the whole dating thing. Y'know? The making out and buying her ice cream and everything. I just like being with her." He tilted his head to one side, resting his temple against Riku's flank. He watched the clouds.

"I know the feeling," Riku said, which was odd, because he'd never had a girlfriend. He probably meant Kairi, too. Kairi was the only contest Sora'd ever won, between them. And the only one that mattered.

Something touched Sora's hair. It was Riku's hand. _Um. Sora? That's Riku's..._

"Mm," Sora said, lazy as a cat. He sort of rubbed his cheek against Riku's side, the bare skin there. Riku stroked his head.

_Sora,_ I said, urgently. _Sora, I don't think you get it. I think he's. . ._

"He's Riku," Sora mumbled, as if that answered anything. Riku must have heard, but he didn't say anything, only brushed Sora's cheek with his thumb.

_He likes you,_ I said, _like that. That's why he's touching us._

"I always sort of figured," Sora whispered.

_ What?!_

"You did?" Riku asked, sounding sort of amused. Wry.

"Kinda."

_ You never told me._

"You never asked."

Riku laughed. But it was a short, hard laugh, like coughing. Or like he'd been punched. "Is that all?" he said. "Should I ask now?"

It wouldn't have worked if Sora had been less relaxed. Or if I had been more relaxed. But I took the front, and sat up. "Maybe not," I said. "I'm sorry."

_ He didn't ask you, Roxas._

_Were you going to say something else?_ He didn't answer. _I won't be a jerk, I promise._

"Sora?" Riku said.

If he guessed that we'd switched, it'd be almost as bad as if I hadn't stepped in at all. "Yeah?"

"No hard feelings, then?"

_ No! _

It wasn't until I heard Sora's reaction that I looked at Riku's eyes and realized what he was trying to be cool about. "No way, Riku!" I nudged his shoulder like he always did to Sora. How would he say it? Badly, I figured. "You're my best friend! And I kind of thought. . . I mean, if I ever was going to, um. . ." I made an effort not to blush - Sora was a doof, but he wasn't even in the same country as shy. I managed a nervous laugh instead. "It's just, I love Kairi." This was easier, since I could speak for myself in Sora's style. "I love her so much."

"I'd noticed," Riku said dryly. "And vice versa. Trust me, you never seemed available or anything."

Until now? Right. Because now maybe Sora was only half taken. I might not like how Riku took Sora for granted sometimes, but he never, ever hurt Kairi. Confessing to her boyfriend would definitely count. Of course, as soon as there was a chance Sora was just her boyfriend's brother...

_Roxas, you're lying to him._

_ What did I say that wasn't true?_

_ He thinks you're me! We just did this, Roxas!_

_ So what? I said all the same things you would have. Right?_ No answer. _Or if I didn't, I bailed you out._ We kept each other from doing stupid stuff all the time. _We've got girlfriends, Sora._

_ I know, it's just. . ._

_ Want the front, then? _He pulled past me gratefully.

"You should have just said something, you know," Sora said. He laid back again, letting his head rest against Riku's ribs.

_Geez, don't tease him._

_ I'm not!_

Riku rubbed Sora's shoulder, and relaxed. "Maybe." They seemed content to lie there, like they were going to sleep. I fell asleep, anyway. I don't know what happened for a while after that.

--

It was a burst of fear and anger that woke me up. Sora was sitting on the dock, with Riku, Kairi and Namine, and a few other friends. It seemed like the same day, but long enough later that Sora and Riku were dry. I didn't see anything for Sora to be upset about. _What?_

_ She said. . . she said. . ._

"Come on, Sora, I didn't mean anything," Selphie said. "You would look cute as a blond. I want to see it."

Oh. Well, that wasn't good. "Riku!" Sora glared at him.

"Hey, don't look at me."

"Well, I know it wasn't Kairi!" Selphie giggled. Sora looked at Kai - at Namine, who was smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry, Sora. We were just talking, and I let slip how you tried temporary dye, and how it looked." She'd said the word I funny, which I guess meant she was talking about Kairi.

"Kairi!"

Riku stood up. "Well, this looks like fun, but I think the treehouse needs some fixing up." With a wave, and the smile of someone with lots of practice in seeing the upsides of unrequited affection, he walked off up the dock.

"Wait, it's not that big a deal, is it?" Selphie asked.

"It was supposed to be a secret," Sora said. He sounded kind of grouchy, which didn't seem bad if you didn't know that was as angry as he ever sounded.

"That only counts if it looks bad, Sora," Selphie told him, with the air of an expert. "That's the point. If it looks good - which it did, right?" she added to Namine. She didn't answer, but she kept smiling, which was probably enough. "If it looks good, you want people to know about it."

She looked at Kairi, then back at Sora. "Or were you guys, like, role-playing or something? Pretending to be someone else?" Everyone stared at her. I assume Tidus and Wakka were staring because it was bizarre. Namine and Sora were staring because it was too close to right, _and_ because it was bizarre. Though I suppose we four can't really talk.

Then Selphie glanced at Tidus. And his blond hair. The kid looked like a deer in headlights. "I'm gonna go give Riku a hand." He downright scurried away. Wakka went after him.

"Selphie, no!" Sora said. "It's not anything like that." ("Thank God," I heard Tidus mutter from up the dock.) "Where do you get this stuff?"

"Well, you got so upset, I figured there had to be something."

"You're strange, Selph," Nam - damn it, Kairi said. How was a guy supposed to keep up, the way they switched?

"It's not that the hair thing is a big deal," Sora lied. He was bad at it, but then, Selphie was pretty goofy. _Quick, Roxas, why isn't the hair a big deal?_

_ Uh. . . It's not the hair, it's that Kairi broke her promise._

_ Thanks!_ "Kairi promised she wouldn't tell anyone about it, is all."

"Oh," Selphie said. Sora and Kairi looked at her. A seagull cawed in the distance.

"Can we have a few minutes, Selph?" Kairi asked finally.

"Oh! Right, sorry." She followed the others to shore.

"Phew," Kairi said. "I really am sorry, guys. It slipped."

"How did it even come up?"

"We talk about boys. We talk about everything, we're best friends. Like you and Riku."

After that almost-conversation with Riku earlier, that produced some, ah, interesting images. _Stop it, Roxas._ "I didn't tell Riku about Namine," Sora pointed out. "And you didn't tell Riku or Selphie about Namine."

I think I spotted another switch, to Namine. "I'm sorry. . . Roxas?"

"No, I'm Sora."

"I thought so," she said, "but. . ."

"What? I get mad." He crossed his arms. "You talk about us a lot quicker than you talk about yourselves."

"That would be frustrating," Namine admitted. "But if Riku and we hadn't been there yesterday, would you two have said anything?"

"Well, no."

"And I didn't tell Selphie about Roxas," Kairi added. "Just that you colored your hair. And then I told her you probably wouldn't do it again. But if any of those guys sees you in Roxas form now, they'll be less likely to guess about Roxas."

"But it's not fair," Sora said. "We're stuck explaining the hair to Selphie and convincing Riku that Roxas is real and you just sit there."

They were quiet for a few seconds. "Is Roxas mad at me, too?" Kairi asked.

I wasn't, really. It had been a bit silly, but no harm done, and it was actually pretty cool that she'd been too impressed to keep quiet. "No," Sora said. "So what?"

"Nothing. I was just asking." She leaned forward. "I really am sorry, Sora. I'll be careful not to say anything else."

Whatever he says, you have to work to keep Sora mad at you. "Yeah. Okay." He fiddled with his shoelaces. "I just feel like me and Roxas are dealing with this by ourselves."

"That's not true, Sora." She scooted over and put her arm around him. "When we first saw Roxas, and realized there really were two of you, it was such an amazing moment. I felt so lucky, that we'd have someone to talk to about all this. If we're not alone, then how can you guys be alone?"

"Thanks, Kairi." He tilted his head, to sort of rub against hers. "Oh, I've been meaning to ask. How do you and Namine switch who's in front so fast?"

"I dunno. It's just not a big deal for us. We're both right here, usually, there's not anyone 'in the back.'"

"Huh. Roxas couldn't take front at all until we were eight."

_Yes, I could! Just not when you were awake to remember._

"Oh, well, right, except when I was asleep."

Kairi blinked. "Isn't sleep something the body does?"

"I don't mean that kind of sleep. Just, sometimes if the one in back is bored or in a bad mood or whatever he kind of turns off, and doesn't see or talk or remember anything."

"Wow, wouldn't that be nice," Kairi said, followed by an emphatic little nod, probably from Namine. "You mentioned convincing Riku that Roxas was real. How did that go?"

"Um. . . it got a little weird," Sora said truthfully. "But he basically gets it, now. And Roxas apologized for what he said yesterday."

"Good. It was so strange to have you guys fighting. I don't even know what you'd be like if you weren't friends."

_They don't know, do they?_

_ Of course not,_ Sora thought back. _You didn't know either, remember? And you've been watching the whole time. I didn't know for sure myself. That's just how Riku acts toward me. There's not much to notice - nothing's really changed since we were three._

That was as far back as we remembered. Sora was saying "forever." Riku was obviously used to it, but I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. If Kairi and Namine hadn't gone for guys. . . it would be like missing a hand, always wanting to reach without the power to grasp.


	3. The Book of Love

I had an instant message account already. Well, originally, it was an old account of Sora's I'd blurted out when Hayner asked for my screen name, but it was mine now. So when I remembered the scrawl of ink still faintly visible on our arm, I had a way to sign in and use it.

CaptExcalibur: Axel? This is Roxas.

DancingFlameXI: Nerf boy! What took you so long?

(That was actually more like "nerf boi! wht took u so long" but that looks stupid, so I'm going to pretend the internet can spell.)

Me: I was doing stuff with my brother last night. Did you write on my arm with permanent ink or something? Two showers and the Pacific Ocean, and it's still there.

Axel: Good thing, right? Or you'd be deprived of my dazzling conversation.

Me: Yeah, whatever.

Axel: Captain Excalibur? Is that from a cartoon I haven't seen?

Me: Um, actually, it's Captain _of_ the Excalibur. Which was a raft my friends and I built when we were little. The screen name's kind of old.

And then Sora had lost the race and ended up first mate of the Highwind anyway, but I definitely wasn't going to mention that.

Axel: Aw, that's cute. So how'd your tournament go?

Me: Not bad. I won.

Axel: Whoa. You never said you were actually _good_ at the geeky nerf-bat game.

Me: I'm okay. The top ranked guy got disqualified, though. And it wasn't a big tournament, anyway.

Axel: Come on, you know you love kicking dorky, tennis-ball-covered ass.

Before I came up with an answer to this, I got another message.

UsualSuspect: Yo. You're on for once.

Me: What's up, Hayner?

Hayner: Not much.

Me: Can I ask you a weird question?

This was what made me think of IM'ing Axel, but I'd only met him yesterday, and anyway I had a pretty good idea what he'd think.

Hayner: Shoot.

Me: Do you know any gay guys?

It took him a while to answer.

Hayner: I don't think so. Unless we were telling the truth by accident when we messed with Seifer. Why?

Me: I just found out this guy's got a crush on my brother.

Hayner: Right. Your brother. Dude, come on, I don't care.

Me: No, actually honestly my brother. The guy barely knows me.

Hayner: Oh. Okay, so what's bugging you? Does your brother like him back?

Me: Nah. Sora's got a girlfriend. But apparently he's known about it forever.

The other window flashed.

Axel: So when are you going to sign up for the World?

Me: You mean the game you play? Who said I was going to?

Axel: I did, obviously. When are you going to sign up?  
Me: Wow, no one ever taught you what "subtle" meant, did they?

Hayner's window flashed again. Switching between these two conversations was going to give my brain whiplash.

Hayner: I probably wouldn't tell anyone either.

Me: I didn't even know Sora _could_ keep secrets from me. And we've all been hanging out all this time and I never knew.

Hayner: Is he younger or older?

Me: We're twins, but if one of us was gonna be the goofy, annoying little brother, it's him.

_I'm right here, you know._

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em."

_Dork._ The computer beeped. _Want me to get that?_

"I think Axel would run you right over."

_That's not Axel, though._

There was a new tab for KeyofTwilight. "Gah. All I needed. Yeah, tell me what to type."

Riku: Hey. Why're you using this name? Wishing we had the raft still?

Sora: Hi. Actually, this is the account Roxas uses.

Riku: Oh. So, wait, who is this?

Sora: Sora. I'm. . . what's that word, when someone types what you say?

Me: Dictating.

Riku: Dictating?

Sora: That's it.

Riku: That was strange. That wasn't Sora remembering at the last minute, was it?

Sora: I guess I should have asked Roxas first.

"Whoops, I'm up."

Hayner: That explains it. This guy is making moves on your little brother, so you want to kick his ass.

Me: It's not like he's a creep or anything. He knows Sora's straight, and he's cool about it. It's just weird.

_My turn._

Riku: Why don't you just type yourself?

Sora: Because if we switched every time you or Hayner types something we'd get a headache.

Riku: "We'd get a headache." That's something I hadn't thought about with the multiple personalities thing. Do you get in fights when one of you eats too many cookies?

Me: YES!

Sora: (laughing) He tried to punch me for that one. That just made things worse.

Riku: I wondered why you were doing that. . .

_You can just type "lol," you know. That's what it's for._

"But it wasn't out loud. You laughed in my head. And L-I-M-H would just be strange."

Hayner: Why?

I had to look back to remember what he was asking.

Me: 'Cause he's my brother, I guess.

Hayner: You worry too much about stuff. If the guy's not doing anything anyway, what do you care if he's queer?

Me: It's not that. Ah, it's probably not anything, is it?

Another window switch. "How do you do this all the time? It's worse than talking to Kairi and Namine."

Sora chuckled. _You get used to it._

Axel: You won't get anywhere by ignoring me. I'll start linking you to brain-eating flash movies until you listen. Or go insane and murder your neighbors.

Me: What do you want me to play this game for, anyway?

Axel: I think you'd like my guild.

Me: I think if I hung out with a bunch of people like you I wouldn't need flash movies.

Axel: lol Ouch. But seriously, where else are we going to hang out?

Me: Uh. . . you know I'm straight, right?

Axel: Ha! Don't worry, your virtual honor is safe with me. My gaydar read you as straight, despite the pants.

"Did he just call my pants gay?" I said aloud.

Axel: Anyway, you have a twin brother. "If at first you don't succeed. . ."

Me: Touch Sora and die, freak.

Maybe Hayner had something after all.

Riku: So what does Roxas talk about online, anyway?

"Make something up."

_No._ He had to tell me his answer three times before I would type it.

Sora: Pants, apparently.

Riku: . . . pants.

Sora: Yup!

Riku: Should I ask why?

Me: No.

_Aw, come on!_

"No way, Sora. I will not insult the masculinity of my own pants."

Axel: You are getting sleepy. Veeery sleepy. You will join the World That Never Was. You want to be a Nobody.

Me: limh

Axel: What?

Me: Laughing in my head. . . never mind.

Axel: See? You're a freak! You _have_ to join.

Me: Whatever. I'll think about it, okay?

Axel: You know you're gonna give in. You're a born Nobody.

Me: I said I'd think about it. Geez. Do you ever shut up?  
Axel: Once, when I was ten. For forty-five whole minutes. My parents nearly had a heart attack.

I closed the tab. Axel probably didn't care about good manners, anyway.

Riku: Do you and Roxas get along okay? He seems kind of grouchy.

Sora: Gee, what would having a grouchy friend be like?

Riku: Hey, just because I'm not Captain Sunshine every day like some people. . . Seriously, though. Do you and Roxas fight?

Sora: About eight times a day, yeah.

Riku: That must suck.

Sora: Oh, wait, you're talking about real fights? I don't think we've been angry more than five minutes since. . . since I ate all those cookies, I guess.

We'd been ten.

Riku: Oh.

Sora: We've been a team since forever. Roxas has started calling me his brother lately, and I guess that's about right.

Riku: Ah! That makes sense. You'd spend at least that much time together. And I guess you do have the same parents.

Sort of. Riku made the third person on the island to know I existed, and the first two were Kairi, so it was hard to feel nurtured by Sora's clueless parents. But Sora didn't want to talk about that, so I didn't type it.

Sora: Were you worried about me? Because of _Roxas?_

Riku: I didn't get it. Forget I said anything.

Sora: (ruffles your hair) There's a big friendly dog next door who always tries to lick my face. You can come over and protect me from him, too, if you want.

Riku: noogies You couldn't even reach my hair.

Sora: I jumped. Roxas and I have to get ready for school tomorrow, though, okay?

Riku: Sure. See you two tomorrow.

Sora: (-:

I closed that tab, too, feeling a little weird about the conversation. Riku and Sora had always been touchy, and it bugged me a little now, even over the computer. But I realized I was looking at some old messages from Hayner, that I'd apparently missed.

Hayner: Definitely nothing. Don't sweat the small stuff, man.

Hayner: Night.

I signed off.


	4. If I Had My Chance

The next day was Monday, and I never come in front while we're at school.

It's not the schoolwork itself - I pay attention in class, and do my half of the homework. It's just the way people look at you, like they know what box you go in. Which I guess wouldn't be so bad, if I _was_ an outgoing theater geek. Sora seems to do okay, anyway, so I just let him handle it. I'm probably the only teenager ever who sleeps through everything in school _but_ class.

That's why I had to hear from Sora that Namine was apparently more serious about drawing me than we'd thought. And _that's _why I was knocking on the mayor's door that evening, trying not to feel like blond hair was a flashing sign that read "CRAZY - CRAZY - THINKS HE'S TWO PEOPLE."

And then Kairi's dad answered the door. "Hello?"

"Hey, is Kairi here?"

"Yes. Who should I tell her it is?"

Have you ever had one of those moments where you know what you need to say, you know you're blowing it, but you just can't open your mouth? I had that. He didn't recognize me. I'd always thought I was kidding myself with the hair dye and different clothes, that anyone who saw us in the wrong outfit would just ask why Sora was blond / I was brunette all of a sudden.

_Say Sora. Say Sora. Say Sora._

"Sora," I blurted, way too late. "It's me, Sora."

"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Come in." I stepped past him and toed off my sneakers, looking bemused.

Namine came downstairs. "Is that Sora, Daddy?"

"Yes, actually, but he certainly had me fooled. You two leave the bedroom door open."

An eyeroll happened that was either Kairi or a good impression. "Of course, Daddy." We went up to Kairi and Namine's room.

"He didn't recognize me," I said quietly. "He didn't know who I was."

"Mom says he needs glasses," Namine said, just as softly. "But you really do look different. It's not just the hair and the outfit. You stand different than Sora does. Your voice is lower."

"I'm in front a lot, though, and no one ever notices."

"It's much harder to recognize you in Sora Form," Namine admitted. "I guess you pretend to be him." The whole point of what Namine called Roxas Form was that I felt more comfortable in it, more like myself, but I had no idea it was anything anyone else could see.

"So how do we do this?"

"Um, why don't you sit on the bed." I did. "No, not like that. Get comfortable."

"If your dad sees I've mussed your bed, he'll kill me." But I scooted back, pulled my feet up, and slouched against the wall.

"That's it." She smiled at me, took her ready pad and a stick of charcoal, and started drawing.

"How long does this take?"

"Well, I'm not doing anything complicated," she said. "But it'll be longer if you keep moving."

"Sorry." I wondered if this was actually going to be any good. Lots of people draw, but even the ones who really like it are mostly bad. And I'd never heard anything about this before. If she'd been practicing a lot, I probably would have. Though it seemed Kairi was like Sora, she was the one who both people pretended to be. "Namine? How much time have we spent together?"

(There are some things normal people never have to say.)

The charcoal stopped, but she didn't look up. "Actually," she said, "Saturday was my first kiss."

"Whoa. Really?" I had noticed the difference, but after all, she'd had plenty of chances.

"I was around," she said. "But it seemed like cheating. You didn't know I was there." She gave me a nervous glance and started drawing again.

"I wish I had," I said. "I guess you spotted me."

"Pretty much," she said.

I realized that this was basically a first date. Like someone flipped a switch, I was nervous. I forced myself not to fidget. Once Kairi's dad walked by and glanced in, not as casual as he wanted to look. That didn't help at all.

At last Namine looked up and said "You can see it now." I got up, still nervous, still bracing to be polite about a mediocre drawing.

It was me. I mean, okay, maybe a makeover and bad posture can make Sora unrecognizable to a myopic middle-aged man in bad light. That's not what I'm talking about. What Namine had been looking at, frankly, was Sora in disguise, but that wasn't what she'd drawn. She'd kept the clothes and hair, filled out the wrists and ankles, shrunk the feet, and done _something _to the face. . . I couldn't believe that was all just mistakes. She'd drawn me.

"It's just a quick charcoal sketch," she began.

"How did you do this? _I_ couldn't have imagined this."

"I just thought, maybe that's how you'd look, if you were real. No, that came out wrong. . ."

"It's okay, I think like that sometimes, too. Namine, this is amazing. I can't believe you did this in half an hour."

"Um. . . well, I've tried things like this before."

More drawings like this one. "Show me." She brought out a couple old pads, and paged through. The first one was basically Sora, in an un-Sora-ish thoughtful pose, with pitch black hair. The next was a red-haired stranger, tall and wide-shouldered, in Sora's clothes. The third was a blurry pastel fellow with brown hair but no spikes. The rough details like hair color and build changed almost at random, but the face changed steadily from Sora's toward the final Roxas face she'd just done, and the eyes never changed.

"Wow," I said. "Thank you. So much."

"When I drew these, I didn't think I was drawing someone real. Kairi said I was getting my hopes up."

"I'm real." I even believed it. I had a face, didn't I?

"Can I ask what Sora thinks?"

"He hasn't said yet. Sora?" No answer. "Huh. I can't believe it - I think he fell asleep. While I was posing, I guess. I'm sorry."

"No, that's all right. Kairi's still here. She thinks you look handsome."

"You look _cute_," Kairi herself corrected.

I thought of something. "Are there any pictures of you? Namine," I added, for clarity.

"Just one," Namine said, and showed me the page.

It didn't even look finished. Just a few strokes of colored pencil, that suggested a girl instead of showing her. Pale and blond, in a simple white dress. She looked like she was going to fade right off the page.

Kairi was redheaded, tomboyish, exciting, devoted. She shone like a beacon, drawing the eye, drawing the heart. She was always, always there. And Namine, with no name, no separate friends, no one-day hair dye, no Twilight Town. . . faded?

I handed her the charcoal and the portrait of me. "It's not done until you sign it." None of the pictures had been signed.

"I can't. If Mom looked through my pads. . ."

She'd probably think Namine was a pen name - or my name - long before she got to the truth, but I said, "I'd love to keep it."

"Oh," she said. "Well." And in neat script at the bottom, she wrote _Namine._

"There," I said, and kissed her.

I was awkward because it was our second kiss, even though I hadn't been for the first one, and I was awkward because halfway through I was _sure_ her father was watching me from behind. But I wanted to make her feel real.

When we stopped, I looked behind me. No mayor. "I want to take you out, just like this," I whispered. "I want to introduce you to everyone. I want to carve Roxas plus Namine inside a heart on the biggest tree on the beach."

"Roxas? Roxas, you know we can't do any of that. Is this like how Sora was mad yesterday?"

"Nah, that was just 'cause he felt like you guys left him alone. He hates that, but I don't care. This is. . . this is me going crazy. Because every time I give my name as Sora, every time you let Kairi front so no one notices you, it's like we're admitting we're not real. And I think eventually I'll do that one time too many and it'll be true. But if people find out, we're crazy. You and me, we _are_ the crazy. And everyone'll tell Sora I'm not real, and eventually they'll do that one time too many. . ." Namine led me over, sat me on her bed. "And I want to scream, but I have to whisper." She wrapped her arms around me, pulled me close so my head rested beside hers. "And anyway, Sora's the one who wants the world to hug him."

"You can have a turn," Namine said. After a while, she said, "Does he really? I thought it was just Kairi."

"Nope, other way around. In his book, the best thing about having a girlfriend is that she's someone he can hug all the time and no one would care." She chuckled. "He said once he wished I had a body so he could give me a hug. _That's_ his reason - hugs."

"You wish you were separate? Even if you didn't have to worry about anyone else?"

"Yeah, of course."

"I wouldn't want that. I don't want to ever be separated."

"We wouldn't be_ separated_, we'd still be a team. Brothers. Just with one body per person, like the rest of the universe gets."

"But even brothers aren't as close as you and Sora are now. You know things about him that Riku and Kairi and I don't know. You could never be so close, if you were separate."

"Well. . . maybe." I knew things about Riku that Kairi and Namine didn't know, too, now. Maybe Sora would help me get Riku a boyfriend. Would that be weird? Probably. Whatever. Maybe Axel liked silver-blondes.

Kairi's dad looked in, smiled, and kept walking. He liked me - well, he liked Sora - but he still tried to protect Kairi. He obviously hadn't thought through all those trips to the play island. We practically could've been raising kids out there, and he wouldn't know.

"It's getting late," Namine said. "Are you going to stay for dinner?"

"Better not. Your dad's been smiling and walking by so far but if we sit down to dinner you know he's going to ask what the costume's for."

"Probably. And if I put you up to it." We stood up. She got a pair of scissors, and cut my picture out of her pad. "I'll see you in school tomorrow?"

"Sora," I said. "But hey, if you see Sora's old IM name sign on, that's me."

"Okay." And I kissed her again, for goodbye.

"You're sweet, Roxas," Kairi said, and gave me a quick kiss herself. They walked me to the door.

Sora woke up halfway home. _Huh? It's over? How'd it go?_ I looked at the picture so he could see. _Whoa. That's awesome. Is that really how you look?_

"Apparently," I said. "How would I know? I can't see me, either."

_She's really good, huh?_

"She's amazing."

--

AN: Asking for reviews has always felt really lame to me, and I tend to avoid it. I want people leaving reviews because they like the story, not because I begged. But right now, this story is on eight alerts, four favorite lists and a c2. This is fantastic, don't get me wrong. But since you do like the story, please tell me why.

I have, incidentally, found at last a good scheme for naming chapters. If you include a guess in the review you were certainly going to write anyway, I might give you candy, or a secret preview, or something.


	5. We've Been On Our Own

"Sora? I'm home."

"Hi, Mom," Sora called down, not looking away from the computer screen.

"I brought chicken!"

Sora instantly started thundering down the stairs.

_Hey, it's my turn! You had the pizza last week._

_ And the next time we have pizza is yours. It's my turn for chicken._

_ Dream on, Sora. Let go of the doorknob and step away from the front._

_Aww._ We switched, and I went into the kitchen myself. It shouldn't have mattered, because the guy in back can use the tongue as easy as the eyes. But for some reason food tastes better when you eat it yourself, and anyway, Sora always picks the white meat for some reason.

I hugged Mom, because Sora always did. "Who says you can't buy love?" she joked. "It comes in a red paper bucket."

"Mo-om," I groaned, still playing Sora. "Dad's still at work?"

"Mm-hm. He can reheat meatloaf or chicken, as he likes. For us, soup's on." She pulled the cover off the bucket. I set out a couple plates and forks and grabbed a drumstick. Mom gets takeout when she wants us - Sora - to feel better about Dad not being home. "So, I noticed you coming home with the blond gel in your hair last night." Or when she wants to trap us for a Talk.

_You know, you can have the chicken, Sora. I don't mind._

_Oh, no. It's your turn. I insist._

"Uh, yeah." I tried a smile. "Kairi wanted to see it."

"Really? I didn't think you wanted her to know about it."

"Huh?" Where had she gotten that? I mean, it was true up till Saturday, but. . .

"I talked to Chiyoko," Riku's mom, "and she said Riku and Kairi were surprised to see you in Twilight Town last weekend." Erp. "You aren't seeing anyone up there, are you?"

_Huh?_

_Like a girl,_ I explained, but out loud I copied Sora. "Huh?"

"Someone Kairi should know about?"

"Oh! Geez, Mom, no! I just have friends up there."

"Who you can't see looking like that?"

Well, exactly. "It's not like that, Mom. It's just a different crowd."

"Who I haven't met."

"They don't live on the island," I mumbled. And Pence would greet her with _Hi, Roxas' mom_, and things would get very strange very fast.

Mom looked at me for a while, and ate her chicken. "I can't pick your friends," she said finally. "Or your clothes. And you seem to be doing well in school and the play and all. But I'd hate to see you grow away from Riku and Kairi."

"I wouldn't, Mom."

"Good. Eat your corn." I took more corn. "Riku's birthday is next week, right?"

"Yeah?" I said, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"Why don't you and Riku and Kairi take out the _Interceptor_ for an overnight this weekend? As a present for Riku." The _Interceptor_ is an eighteen-foot sailboat Dad bought "to practice for the yacht," and then never took out because he was too busy working for a promotion that would let him afford a yacht. It didn't have a cabin, but it was plenty big enough for three teenagers and some camping gear.

"Seriously?"

She smiled, pleased that I was pleased. "I think it would be good for you three to spend some time together."

"I don't have to stop going up to Twilight Town, do I?"

"No." She didn't like it, I could tell, but Mom has rules about her rules, if that makes sense. Sora loves her for it, which works better than rules anyway. It's like Sora's got a voice of "what would Mom say" installed in his head. It's crowded enough in here without that. I was sure I was going to end up seeing Hayner and them less this summer, whatever she said.

But still. "That's great, Mom," I said. "Thanks." The whole infamous raft incident had been supposed to be a trip like this, and I'd been as excited about it as Sora and the others.

Apparently she was remembering the same thing. "I checked the weather already. There's no storm this time."

"_Interceptor_ is a little more solid than _Highwind_ was, anyway." Wait, crap. Sora always called it _Excalibur_, even now. But Mom didn't notice.

"Still," she said, "be safe, and watch out for each other."

"When do we do anything else?" I finished the drumstick and reached for another piece. "I'll call Riku and Kairi after dinner."

--

"That sounds great, Sora!" Kairi said. "Let me just go tell daddy."

"Okay," Sora said. There was a click as she put the phone down. We heard voices in the background. Kairi's got louder. Eventually, she picked up again.

"Hi, Sora."

"Hi. Is, uh, is everything okay?"

"Fine, Sora," Kairi said sweetly. "Everything's fine. I'll be there, count on it."

"Okay. . ."

"Talk to you later, Sora!" she said, and hung up before he - or the voice in the background - could say anything coherent.

_Uhhhh-huh. You know her dad just said no, right?_

"I don't _know_ that," Sora muttered. "And anyway, she might change his mind." I could guess how Riku would react to a weekend alone on an island with Sora. . . "Did you say something?"

_Nope._

He dialed Riku's number. "Hello?"

"Hey, Riku, it's me. I've got your birthday present."

"A whole week ahead of time? That's a new record, isn't it?"

"Aw, come on, I'm not that bad."

"So what are you telling me about it now for?"

"Well, it's not really something I can give you _on_ your birthday. My parents said we could take out _Interceptor_ this weekend, overnight."

Pause. "Just you and me?"

"No, Kairi's coming, too."

"Awesome! Just like old times."

"Except with less sinking?"

"Knock on wood. So how'd you get the boat?"

"Uh, actually Mom just offered it to me." He paused to close our bedroom door. "You can thank Roxas, actually. She's worried I'm spending too much time up in Twilight Town with blond hair and not enough time with you and Kairi. I still say she secretly wants to adopt you guys."

"Your parents doesn't know about Roxas, then?"

"Geez, of course not, Riku. They'd think I was crazy. Or making it up - they have to remember the imaginary friend days."

"Hikari might be cool."

"Well, I guess maybe," Sora said, "but it's not like she doesn't talk to Dad."

"I always thought she'd be able to keep a secret," Riku said.

"Where do you get that?" Sora asked. "She talks more than Selphie."

Riku thought about his answer for a second, and said, "I always thought she knew, uh, more about me than she let on."

"Oh."

_Would she want us spending more time with him if she knew that?_

"Why not? She likes him as much as Kairi."

_That was out loud. . ._

"Um, anyway," Riku said, ignoring that. "I do get why you wouldn't want to tell anyone, though. I mean, if I had a hard time with it. . ."

"Yeah, I know, right? Though most of that was fighting with Roxas _about_ having a hard time with it."

"I guess you got lucky with Kairi."

_Not yet._

_Roxas!_

"Uh, understanding so well about Roxas, I mean," Riku added before Sora said anything out loud. Not that we hadn't known what he meant, but some straight lines are just too easy to give even to Sora.

"You have no idea how lucky," Sora said fervently, thinking of Namine. Riku coughed. ". . .I was that she understood so well."

"Right."

"_Ri_ku! That's all I meant!"

"I know, I know. Hey, speaking of Roxas, can I talk to him for a minute?"

"Er. . . okay."

I took the front. "Yeah?"

"Roxas?"

"I'd say 'that's what my mother calls me,' except she doesn't. What's up, Riku?"

"I guess you and I are _also_ going to be taking a trip together."

"Just like old times," I pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but you were hiding, or pretending to be Sora, or whatever you do. I thought now that you're talking to me we should be on speaking terms, especially if we're going to be stuck together for two days. Do you want to hang out tomorrow?"

I blinked. "I've known you since we were two, Riku."

"Yeah, but I've only known you since Saturday."

"Sure you knew me. You thought I was smarter than Sora, remember?"

"Well, okay, but. . ."

"If I still weird you out and you want time to get used to it, just say so."

Long pause. Riku just said, "So."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine." I guess he wouldn't be Riku if he actually said what he meant. "Our place, after Sora gets out of rehearsal?"

"Sure."

"See you then."

"I am trying, you know," Riku said suddenly. "It's just really weird when half of your best friend," he said that without stumbling over stronger terms, which impressed me, "is suddenly someone else."

"Think of it as _all_ of your best friend being suddenly someone else and then later back again, several times a day."

". . . that's even weirder."

"I know. I figure it's like getting into a cold pool. Might as well get used to it fast." I flopped over on the bed. "It took Sora and I eight years, but then, we were kids."

"Huh."

"Sora appreciates it, you know. The trying."

"You don't?"

"Well, more in the sense that if you didn't try we'd be fighting again."

Riku laughed. "The more I talk to you, the less you sound like Sora."

"Uh. . . thank you?"

"Is Sora still listening, by the way?"

_Yup._

"Yeah, he's awake. He usually is when you're around. Why?"

"I'd rather know, is all. Say when he's not, if you remember?"

I shrugged. "Okay."

"So, I'll see you tomorrow, I guess," Riku said. "And I'm bringing my Struggle kit."

"Want a lesson, huh? No problem."

"The word is _rematch_, blondie. Unless you don't have the balls?" Pause. "Can't score a Struggle match without balls on the harnesses. You guys own a set, right?"

--

UsualSuspect: Har har. Did he think you hadn't heard that one before? You've only been Struggling for three years.

CaptExcalibur: Seriously. I heard it first from you, I think.

Hayner: Only until Seifer shelled out for a set.

Me: That was good for a few more weeks of jokes right there, though.

Hayner: Especially when Rai borrowed 'em. So, how bad did you kick his butt?

Me: Seven matches to five. It took me twelve friggin' matches to win two in a row.

Hayner: All standard, though, right?

Me: Yeah, all we had was a standard bat each.

Hayner: I'd like to see him in an All Weapons tournament some time.

Me: All Weapons is a scam. They're just trying to sell fancy bats. And it doesn't work, anyway, because two standard bats are the most broken thing possible.

Hayner: Dude, Florentine's not broken. You're just badass at it. The _pike_ is friggin' _broken_. I can even beat you with it, sometimes.

Me: Whatever. You never get All Weapons tournaments anyway. They're too expensive to run.

Hayner: Which sucks. They're way more fun.

Me: Be right back, phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sora, it's Kairi." I don't know if that was true, it's harder to tell on the phone, but it didn't really matter.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Well, uh, there's a little problem with the trip this weekend."

"Which is?"

"I can't come."

_What? Let me talk to her._

I let Sora take front. _I told you this would happen._

"Kairi! You promised!"

"I'm sorry, Sora. I thought I could talk my dad into it. He's convinced that as soon as we're three miles from home you'll lose your mind to teenage hormones and rob me of my honor." I could hear her rolling her eyes.

"With Riku there?" Sora said.

"That's what I told him, but he will _not_ listen."

"It's not like I'd do anything like that anyway," Sora said. "We're only fifteen."

_I would._

_Roxas!_

"He said something, didn't he?" Kairi guessed, when the out-loud conversation paused.

Sora blushed and ignored her. "Maybe your dad'll change his mind?"

"I thought so too, but he's going on about how I'm absolutely not going to go."

Sora sighed. "Have you told Riku yet?"

"No. Should I have?"

"It was supposed to be for Riku's birthday."

"Awww! Oh, I feel so bad, I'll have to get him something really good. And tell him myself, of course, he deserves that. But don't cancel it, you two go and have fun."

"Yeah. It won't be the same without you, though."

"Not for me, that's for sure. Hopefully next time you go out my dad won't be stupid about it." Her mother said something in the background. "I need to get off, we're having dinner."

"All right, see you tomorrow. Love you."

"I love you too, Sora."

Sora sighed as he hung up the phone.

_Hayner's still on._

"Yeah, okay," Sora said. "Tell me what to type."

Me: Back.

Hayner: Hey. So, you coming down this weekend?

Me: Nah, I'm going sailing, with my brother and that guy who has a crush on him.

Hayner had met Riku, or seen him, anyway, but I hadn't put a name to Sora's admirer - that's not the kind of thing you just say about someone, even if you're saying it to someone who lives out of town.

Hayner: Oh, here we go. I told you to quit worrying about that.

Me: I'm not, really. We get along okay.

Hayner: As long as they don't share a tent?

There wasn't going to be any way to avoid that - the second tent was Kairi's. And anyway, how would we explain packing another one?

Me: If Sora wanted to, I'd trust the guy.

Hayner: Huh. Bet he won't, though, since he's got the choice. That'd be too much. What about the weekend after that - free then? Seifer says Riku was a ringer and you beat him by luck, he wants a match to prove it.

Me: Well, maybe. My mom thinks I'm coming down there too much.

Hayner: Oh. Hm.

Me: Anyway, I've got homework, so I can't really talk.

Hayner: Fine. See you around, sooner or later.


	6. I Know That You're In Love With Him

The wind was cool, like it only is early in the morning. Riku and I were each hauling a load of gear from my house down to the dock where _Interceptor_ was tied up. Since this trip was supposed to be Riku's birthday present, I had the most awkward part, a gallon milk jug filled with water for each of us. But I didn't mind. The sky was blue, the day was ours, the tide was lowering, ready to take us out of harbor.

Kairi was waiting on the dock, in a dress of pale yellow. She glowed in the dawnlight.

_She's coming?_

"Just to see us off," I mumbled. "She's got no bags." Riku nodded.

"Hi, boys," she called. "I'll get the cargo hatch." She climbed aboard and opened the little hatch in the bow. I handed her the bag in my left hand and carried the water aboard myself. We stowed my load, and then Riku tossed up both sleeping bags and carried on the little cooler.

"Thanks, Kairi," Riku said.

"Oh, no, it's nothing, I just wish I could come."

"Come anyway," I said.

She smiled. "You're sweet, Roxas." Riku's head came up, startled. "What, is it the smiling?" Kairi asked him. "Roxas does smile, it's just different. But if I go when my dad told me not to, he'll lock me in the house till I'm forty."

"Anyway," Riku said, "I'm not sleeping on the sand so you two can share a tent."

"Have a good time, all of you," Kairi said. I leaned down and kissed her. She moaned a little, which was flattering, but I stopped it and looked into her eyes. I couldn't ask in front of Riku, but. . . there, the eyes refocused, like they was seeing a different face. Namine. I smiled back, trying to see the faded artist's face, and I kissed her, too. After that, she watched me, waiting like I had. I switched with Sora.

"Come on," Riku said. "A kiss is traditional, and in your case I can see two. But the tide's going."

Sora laughed and gave Namine a hug. Riku sighed. "Sometimes," Namine whispered, "I think you take Riku for granted." I was startled - I always thought it was the other way around.

"He's Riku," Sora whispered back, as though that was an answer. "Okay," he said out loud, "Riku's right, we should go."

"Start the engine, Sora." Riku hopped onto the dock and started uncleating the bowline. Kairi jumped off too, and Sora waved at her as he started up the little motor the boat had for harbors and calms. He looked back toward the house, and saw Mom up there. He waved at her, too. Riku pushed the boat off and jumped aboard after it, and we were on our way.

--

At noon we were on the starboard tack, north of the home island. The wind had picked up, faster than it usually got in fair weather in the middle of the archipelago. Sora was at the tiller, using the extender - just a rod attached to the end - so he could steer while sitting on the high side and leaning out. Riku had his feet on the rail and was leaning out against a line tied around his waist. _Interceptor_ was still heeling kind of a lot, but at least the boom wasn't trailing in the water. "A little too much sail, do you think?" Riku called. He wasn't exactly being Safe Sailor of the Year, hanging outboard like that.

"Nah!" Sora laughed, looking at the compass.

"Luff," Riku said, but Sora had already heard the edge of the sail rippling. The wind had shifted a few degrees, so that we were pointed too close to it. Sora pulled on the tiller just a bit, and we fell off until the sail snapped full again. Riku grinned at him, and for a moment I could almost see why he wanted to be with Sora. They knew each other so well they sailed like one guy with four hands, like they were linked. "Good sailing today," Riku said, "I. . . wait. You're always this good, aren't you? The one who's not is. . . Roxas?"

"Right!"

_I'm just as good as you, I just can't read Riku's mind._

"Hah, yeah, right."

"You've been talking to yourse. . . each other out loud a lot today."

"Well, we're out here with no one around. It doesn't bug you, does it?"

"I just wish I could hear the other side. Is that Cid's Rock?" Sora had to duck to see where he was pointing under the boom.

"Gotta be. We need to get further south. Coming about." This was tricky, because as the ship's heading crossed the wind, the boom would swing across the boat, and Sora and Riku would have to get to the new high side without getting hit by it.

Riku pulled himself aboard and untied himself, and Sora swung the tiller. The boat came about, and they both scrambled safely under the boom. And then Sora's bare foot slipped on the wet, tilting deck, and we went face-first into the water.

_We're overboard_, I thought stupidly.

_We're fine, _Sora said, twisting around and popping to the surface. A life preserver on a line splashed into the water in front of us.

"Sora! Grab it!" Sora grabbed, not the float, but the line, pulling us back to the boat. It was surprisingly close - Riku must have headed _Interceptor_ into the wind in record time. He pulled us in, and Sora grabbed his wrist and climbed back aboard. "Are you okay? Did you hit your head?"

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

Sora looked down. "I must have banged my knee going over." _Bleeding_ was probably too strong a word, I would have said it was scraped. "I'm _fine_, Riku, calm down."

Riku shook himself. "Sorry."

"What, did you think you were going to have to make a daring rescue?"

_And give mouth-to-mouth? _I added, but Sora was maybe smart not to repeat that.

"I was remembering when _Highwind_ foundered."

"Oh." Sora nudged Riku's shoulder. "Really. I'm okay."

"Yeah." Riku returned the gesture. "So, we should probably not drift onto the rocks."

"Oh, yeah, right. Want a turn steering?"

"Just don't lean off the edge, okay?"

--

We raised Star Island at four in the afternoon, and by five we had the sails furled and were anchored in the lagoon. _Interceptor _doesn't have a deep keel, but enough that we couldn't beach it; there was an inflatable rubber raft (with a battery-powered pump, thankfully) to take us to shore. This was trickier than it sounds - the raft's not that stable or large, and a wet sleeping bag ruins the night pretty quick. Two bodies plus luggage, we figured, was a bad idea. Of course, there was an argument over who would row the luggage in, which amused Riku, since he wasn't involved. The birthday boy cheerfully tossed his shoes and shirt on the top of the pile and swam to shore. Sora, who'd gotten out of loading the boat that morning, got to row.

Riku was already building the fire out of driftwood when Sora got there. When Sora finally got the tent set up, all the fire needed was time, and Riku reached into his bag and came out with a pair of wooden swords. Sora lost twice; I won one and lost one. Then dinner, which without Kairi was pretty simple - hot dogs roasted on long forks, and potatoes and apples baked in the coals.

The sun set as Sora and Riku were laughing and talking over s'mores. In the twilight, Sora spotted something in the sky. He grabbed Riku's wrist and pointed with his toasting fork, a half-toasted marshmallow still on each spine.

Star Island isn't named for how bright the stars are from it - they are bright, but any uninhabited island is the same way. It's not that it's shaped like a star, either, because it's more like a crescent. It's not even, as we all thought on our first visit, because paopu trees grow there. It's the swallows. The species only lives on that island, and they feed at low tide every night, on the flies that gather around beached seaweed. They're mostly dark, but the bottoms of their wings are white, and that white flashed reflected moonlight and firelight like falling stars as they swooped down on their dinner.

"Wow, look at 'em, Riku!"

"Yeah. . ."

_Um, Sora? You're still holding his wrist._

"Oh." Sora shrugged and let go, like it didn't matter. But Riku had noticed, judging by his face. They went on watching the birds and eating s'mores, but I noticed Riku carefully not watching as Sora innocently sucked marshmallow goo off his fingers.

_Geez, Sora, why don't you torture the poor guy?_

_ Huh?_

_ Never mind, let's just switch. I want some s'mores anyway._

Riku looked over in surprise as I speared a marshmallow and then promptly set it on fire. "Roxas?" he asked.

"Roxas." I put the thing together and took a bite. "I alwaysh had the onesh Shora se' on fire by acshiden'," I explained.

"Thanks," Riku said, "looking at that thing _before_ you chewed it wasn't gross enough."

"Sorry."

"Sora's still there, right?"

"Yeah. He could barely sleep last night, he was so excited about this, let alone today."

"Just checking." But why did he never ask if I was awake while Sora was fronting? Was he nervous about being alone with me for some reason? He seemed comfortable enough. "So how did you meet your friends in Twilight Town?" Riku asked. "They know you, and not Sora, right?"

"Yeah. It was after the raft thing, we'd just gotten un-grounded - Sora and I, I mean, you still weren't allowed out and Kairi was still in the hospital. We were kind of stir-crazy, I guess, and I was thinking that if, y'know, the raft had sunk further out, no one would have ever known my name. So one Saturday when Sora was asleep I was in the drug store buying ice cream, and I saw this one-day hair dye, which I didn't even know existed. I bought it, and put it in, and threw on the first clothes I could find that Sora never wore, and took the cheapest train that would get me somewhere no one knew him. Hayner and Pence were skateboarding in Station Square, and they said hi, and I went and talked to them." I shrugged. "It was kind of a coincidence."

"It sounds like. . . never mind."

"What?"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"Riku, seriously, I know you feel like you met me a week ago, but I've known you since I was three. Spit it out."

Slowly, he did. "It sounds like you made friends because you were dying to."

"Oh. Well, maybe."

"It sounds like why I came up with the idea for _Highwind,_" Riku said. "I just wanted something amazing to happen."

"Well, I guess it did, sort of."

"But not like I wanted."

I buried my toes in the sand. "It turns out," I said, "that if you just take the train it works better."

Riku laughed. "Yeah. I'll keep that in mind." There was a pause, while I put together another s'more. "Aren't you tired of those yet?"

"It's only my third," I pointed out. "But you're right, I should probably stop here, or we'll have a rerun of the cookie fight." I chomped the thing down.

"Bed, then?"

"Sure." The fire was safe to leave lit, surrounded by sand. Our tent was a little way down the beach, with our sleeping bags and little camp pillows already inside. "You should try talking about things more often," I said. "It's probably good for you."

He didn't answer that, except after a bit he said, "Good night, Roxas."

"Night."

But we didn't sleep. I watched the star swallows through the tent's screen door, and Riku tossed restlessly. "Sora?" he said eventually.

"Roxas," I corrected.

"No, can I talk to Sora?"

We switched. "Yeah, Riku?"

"Why did you grab my wrist like that, before?"

"I dunno. I just wanted to get your attention. That didn't bug you, did it? I did the same thing after I fell overboard."

"It wasn't the same, really," Riku argued.

"I figured it would bug you if I grabbed your hand - or bug Kairi, if she saw - but what's wrong with your wrist?"

"That's not the point," Riku said. "It's not where, it's how. Here, give me your hand." Riku grabbed Sora's wrist. "There's a difference between this," he said, and then loosened his grip and slid his thumb along the soft inside of Sora's wrist, "and that. Get it?"

_Okay, this is getting slightly weird._

"Um, not really," Sora said uncomfortably.

Riku sighed. "Look. I ruffle your hair all the time, right?" He did so. "But what if I did it like this?" His hand slowed, until the motion was something much closer to running his fingers through Sora's hair. To my dismay, Sora leaned into his hand.

_I get it, Sora, you can have him stop, I'll explain it to you. Just. . ._

Riku's thumb, by chance maybe, rubbed the spot behind our right ear. Sora shivered, and let out a little moan, and we all froze. Riku slowly took his hand away.

_You never made that noise for Kairi_.

Sora started silently to cry.

"Sora? Sora, I'm sorry, that was stupid. I know you're not like that."

"When I kissed Kairi, it didn't feel like that," Sora whispered.

There was a pause. I could practically hear Riku telling himself that didn't mean what it sounded like. I had the advantage of living in Sora's head, so I knew it meant exactly what it sounded like.

_Sora. . ._

"Sora, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you upset or. . . hurt you. . ."

"I didn't mean it hurt," Sora sniffed. "It felt nice."

"Oh," Riku said. "Okay." He hesitated, and said very carefully, "I don't know. . . what you'll want to do, and you'll probably need time to think about it anyway. But Kairi's my friend. Nothing's going to happen with me while you're dating her." Sora sniffed again, and Riku spoke like the words had been broken off of him, "God, don't cry." He brushed the tear off Sora's cheek with the knuckle of one finger.

"You're Riku," Sora said, his old refrain, the reason he couldn't hurt or be hurt, the reason everything was okay. "And you've always. . . "

"That's how I feel," Riku said, "not how you feel. I can't make anything real by myself."

_It's okay, Sora, c'mere. We'll talk about this, okay?_

"Kairi wouldn't mind," Sora said, "if she found out you'd mussed my hair, or, or touched my arm. Right?"

_Wrong! Sora, don't, you just figured this out, we should talk, maybe it's even just a phase._

"I'd mind," Riku said. "I know what I just did, and maybe it was necessary, but anything more - I wouldn't feel right."

Sora was confused and upset, but he'd never been slow to make decisions, and he wasn't even in the same country as shy. He also knew Riku way too well. "I'm scared, Riku. But when you touched me, I felt okay. Safe." That word made Riku shudder. His breathing got faster.

_Sora, you manipulative, cheating - gah! Are you even listening to me?_ It wouldn't have worked if it weren't true, that was the worst part. Sora can't lie worth a damn, he always made me do it for him.

"Please?" Sora said. Riku reached over and ran the tips of his first two fingers across our forehead, as lightly as starshine on the sea. Sora sighed and shivered.

_Sora, please don't._ But he really wasn't listening to me, or couldn't hear me - with thoughts, there's not really much difference. He was focused on the outside, not the inside. Riku's fingers drowned me out.

He didn't touch us anywhere traditionally romantic or sexual - nowhere that would hurt Kairi to hear about. He didn't touch our lips, or ears, or neck, or the palms of our hands or our fingers, our chest, our stomach, or our legs. For that matter, Riku and we were in sleeping bags up to our armpits the whole time, with shorts and t-shirts on underneath. But Riku's fingers ran like butterfly wings everywhere they were allowed to go. He rubbed behind our ear, and Sora moaned. Tracing our left eyebrow made him gasp. Riku ghosted his fingertips across the veins on the back of our hand, and Sora shivered. And when he ran his touch along our collarbone, Sora panted his name.

"Riku. Riku!"

"Sora. Shh. I'm here." He ravished Sora with feather touches, until finally, worn out, Sora cuddled up in his sleeping bag. But the bag was pressed against Riku's, and Riku's hand was in our hair, with his thumb on our temple. And slowly, Sora fell asleep.

And then I was in front.

"Get away from me!"

Riku had been half-asleep. "Wha? Sora? What. . ."

The body - my body - was still half aroused. "Don't touch me! God, get away." I fumbled for the zipper, couldn't find it.

"Sora, what - did I do something - what happened?"

Finally I found the damn zipper, and fled the tent. I heard him getting out after me. "Don't follow me." The night was cool, and I shivered. It reminded me of how Sora had shivered. I rubbed violently at the backs of my hands, and my shoulders, my face. It didn't help. I ran down the beach into the water.

Two waves washed over my chest, and I ducked my head underwater for as long as I could hold my breath, came up gasping. Only then did I turn around,. Riku was sitting on the sand, watching me. "Roxas," he said. I couldn't see his face clearly.

"Go away."

"Not while you're swimming in the dark. But if you stay where I can see you from shore I won't come in after you." So that's what we did, for the next few minutes. I certainly didn't want to see him, so I looked out at the waves.

"I'm coming out," I said eventually.

"Okay." He moved away, and I came on shore. I found a towel that he must have gotten for me, though it didn't help my sopping clothes. "You can have the tent," he said.

"Right." Still breathing hard, I looked at him. "Keep your fucking hands off my brother."

"I'm sorry," was all he said, and he took his sleeping bag and pillow out of the tent and put them by the coals of our fire.


	7. Girl Who Sang The Blues

When I woke up the next morning, Sora was eating breakfast, a little box of dry cereal and an apple. The tent was collapsed, and both sleeping bags were packed. _Sora_

He glanced at Riku, eating a similar breakfast a few feet away, and answered silently. _Hey. Roxas. I - I think I need to break up with Kairi and Namine._

_No way! You're not doing that with Riku again!_

_You can still be with them. It's like Riku said, they know we're different people._

_Like Riku said? As if he doesn't have an ulterior motive._

_Roxas_, he thought, _I've never felt that way before. You can be like that with Kairi, but I don't think I can. _

I remembered what the scene he'd liked so much had been like for me. _Right now, Sora, I don't give a shit how you feel. You won't hurt my girlfriends and you won't let that bastard touch you again._

"What?" he said out loud. Riku looked up, realizing something was wrong. Then Sora's mouth tightened to a stubborn line. _Who says?_

_Me._

_Who cares? Maybe I don't give a crap how you feel either._

_Sora__, if you break up with Kairi for him I'll never forgive you._

"What gives you the right?"

_Because of what we are, I have the right._ _Never forgive you. _God, please, never again. _Never._

Sora's shoulders slumped, and he hung his head.

"Sora?' Riku said. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," Sora lied. As always, it was an awful lie. "Roxas is being a jerk."

"Is _he_ okay?"

"He'll get over it. We fight all the time, it never lasts long."

Riku looked doubtful, but nodded.

--

Sora was half-right - it didn't take _him_ long to cheer up. It was his turn to swim while Riku rowed the luggage back to _Interceptor._ Riku's glance when he offered Sora his shirt back was less casual than the kind he'd used to use. Sora, of course, noticed, and stowed the shirt instead of wearing it. As an alternative, he asked Riku to put suntan lotion on his back. Thankfully, Riku had some restraint left, and so we ended up with a burned spot in the middle of our back, where our arms didn't reach. Riku, who'd been dealing with things like Sora getting hot marshmallow off his fingers for years, only smiled. It was Sora who nearly tacked the boat by accident while admiring the sun in Riku's hair.

The next day, after school, Sora spent the afternoon in our room explaining to me how breaking up with Kairi and Naminé was the right thing to do, how he had to follow his heart, and how he was missing the point entirely and ignoring how I felt. Not that he put it like that, but that's what it meant. I didn't bother answering.

Well, okay, it's not like _everything_ he said was wrong. He sort of had a point when he said faking feelings for Kairi and Namine would be worse than breaking up with them. But that wasn't even the main problem. He'd cheated on our girlfriends. That stupid little game of don't-touch-the-special-places didn't change anything – I was there, I knew what he and Riku had done, and it wasn't Riku's idea, either. And that was the other thing – I'd _been there_, getting groped by a guy, against my will, because Sora wouldn't calm down long enough for me to get away. He didn't hear me.

When I was little, I had nightmares about Sora not hearing me.

The day after that was Riku's actual birthday. There wasn't a big party, but Kairi showed up with Wakka and Selphie and Tidus and an ice cream cake, and Sora went too, though he was distracted and mostly faking his smiles. Anyway, he didn't want to act like Kairi's boyfriend (anymore,) and Riku didn't want to act like _his_ boyfriend (yet,) so it was talk to Tidus or go home. It didn't take him all that long to pick plan B. He wasn't getting a bail out from me - I didn't talk to anyone, including him.

Then on Wednesday, Sora and Riku walked home from school together, and Sora didn't keep going when they got to Riku's house. "Did you want something?" Riku asked.

"I, um," Sora said, "Uh. . . a hug?"

"Have you talked to Kairi?" Riku asked.

"Um. . . not really."

"And is it okay with Roxas?"

"No."

"Then no, and no," Riku said.

"Roxas isn't even talking to me," Sora mumbled. Riku gave him a look.

"I don't really have time to just hang out, " Riku said, "but if you want company we could do our homework together."

"Okay," Sora agreed. Riku's eyebrows went up. For Sora to willingly do homework as soon as he got home was highly unusual, probably a bad sign. But he didn't say anything, being Riku, until half an hour later when Sora asked, "Why are you taking Roxas' side, anyway? He's being completely unfair and stupid."

"I'm not taking his side, Sora. But he's my friend, just like Kairi. I'm not going to hurt him to make myself happy." This sentiment would have been great four days before; now it was just stupid fucking useless. Sora rubbed his eyes, and didn't bother faking a smile.

The day after that, Kairi looked for Sora after his rehearsal, and didn't find him until she looked in the prop closet. He was huddled up in the corner, hugging his knees. "Sora? Are you okay? The director said he sent you home, but your mom said you were still here." He looked up at her. "My God, what's wrong with you?" She sat down beside him and hugged him, pulling his head onto her shoulder.

"I've been in front for five days."

"And that did this? You look awful."

"I'm so _tired_, Kairi. I can barely think, my head feels like it's full of, of little pieces of glass. I couldn't rehearse, because I couldn't remember a line long enough to get through it. Roxas won't even talk to me. I can feel him in there, but he won't answer."

"What - why not? What happened to him?"

"We had a fight. A real one. I don't know why he's so mad, I didn't think he had a problem with. . ." But telling her would be breaking up with her, so he didn't say it.

"What did you fight about? I mean, I can't imagine anything that would make Naminé and I not talk for a week."

"I can't tell you. That's part of what it was about, telling you."

"Well, you obviously have to talk to _someone_, Sora, you're a wreck. What about Riku?"

"He's part of it, too."

"Your parents?"

He shook his head. "No way."

She sighed and squeezed her arm around him. "Look. Whatever this is, it's gone too far. There is nothing you could possibly tell me that's bad enough to be worth this. Just tell me, Sora. It won't be as bad as you think."

"You promise?" Sora said, like a little kid. Kairi nodded. Sora took a deep breath. "I think I'm gay."

Kairi didn't breath for about five seconds. Then she made a quiet, sad little "Oh."

"Roxas is straight, but I'm gay." He looked at her. "I'm sorry I hurt you. Please don't hate me, too."

"It's not - oh, Sora, I don't hate you. I, I. . ." She sobbed, very softly. "I just wish you hadn't said you loved me."

"I do, Kairi. You're wonderful, you're so pretty, and a great girlfriend, and you're perfect for me. I just can't feel anything when I kiss you, and I didn't know why. I'm so sorry."

"Oh." Kairi swallowed. "We're still friends." All the friendship in the world couldn't make that not hurt, though.

"Roxas can't really never forgive me, right? He can't stay in there forever, can he?"

Kairi opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. She didn't look thoughtful or distracted, or any sadder than when she'd been talking, and after a moment I realized she was talking to Namine.

"I'm not completely surprised," Namine said at last.

"Really?"

A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. "There were little hints." She pointed at a shelf above Sora's head. Hanging over the edge was an old-fashioned ladies' hat, hideously turquoise, with a big white feather in it. From the door, it must have looked like he was wearing it.

"Namine! I didn't even see. . ."

"Sh." She sighed. "The one who surprised me is Roxas. I didn't think he was a homophobe."

"Neither did I! I mean, Hayner and Pence say things, but I think it's just to be funny, they don't mean them. His friend Axel is gay, and he didn't even blink, and he got along fine with Riku after. . ." He clapped his hand to his mouth.

There was a pause, while Namine and Kairi counted back five days in their head, and realized who was the only guy Sora could have met that day. "Now that," Namine said, "I didn't guess. Though it explains a lot."

"He didn't, we didn't do anything. He said he wouldn't, until I talked to you. It was just normal stuff, that I, um, noticed." Like tousling our hair? Or a touch to the collarbone? That he'd "noticed" by moaning Riku's name? I wanted to swear at Sora, but breaking my silence would make him feel better, not worse, so I didn't.

"Faithful Riku. Maybe we all take him for granted." She stood up. "Come on."

"Where're we going?"

"We're going to get all five of us together and talk about this," Namine said. Sora swallowed, but followed her to the pool.

"How's Kairi?" he asked.

Namine hesitated, then answered. "Crying."

At least Sora was ashamed. But he dealt with it by reaching over and holding their hand. What a great way to soften a break-up that isn't.

Other towns' high schools give all the prestige to football or basketball. They can do this because they have grass or pavement around for kids to learn to play on. On Destiny Islands, the king jocks are the swim team. Sora's best friend was the star distance swimmer; the team captain and the only freshman relay anchor had hung out with us on the play island for years. He came to most of the meets, including all the big ones. But today he was nervous walking into the pool room. Irrationally, I wanted to snarl at the swimmers.

The practice was just ending. Riku saw us as he climbed out of the pool. He looked from Sora's dark eyes to Namine's red ones to their hands clasped together, and his expression was strange for a moment before it relaxed into a blank, casual smile. We were too far away to talk, but he pointed at the locker room and mouthed the words _go change._ Namine nodded.

I almost didn't get a look at Riku's expression, because Sora didn't really have the eyes pointed that high. Swimming trunks are too baggy for racing in, they drag the water. The suits they wear instead are smaller and tighter than most guys like for underwear. Sora'd had eight years to notice this, but apparently he hadn't until just then.

"I see what this is," Kairi said quietly, following Sora's eyes. Sora glanced at her, and she sniffed but smiled. "It's that he's got better legs than I do, isn't it?"

Sora turned red and put a hand over his mouth, but a snork of laughter got out anyway. "Kairi!" he said, but he was laughing, and so was she. When Riku came out, he saw them laughing and still holding hands. That was fine with me.

"Hi, guys," he said.

"Sora and I have been talking," Kairi said, "and I think we need to talk to you, too."

Riku glanced at Sora, and Sora nodded. At least, that's what I _think_ happened, and if I almost missed it, I doubt Kairi caught it. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother talking to each other. "Oh," Riku said. "That. I'm really sorry, Kairi."

"It's not anything you did."

"Er, well, that's not. . ."

"Um, guys?" Sora said, looking around at the dispersing swim team. "Can we talk about this somewhere else? Like on the walk home?"

Riku nodded, and they got out of the school building before he went on. "So you talked to Kairi. Did you talk to Roxas?"

"He won't answer me!" Sora moaned. "I spent hours trying to explain things, and he's still mad and I don't know _why_. I don't know what to do."

"I don't see what _his_ problem is," Kairi grumbled. "I'm the one who – who's losing something, here. He's being very cruel to Sora. I'm starting to wonder if he isn't a homophobe after all."

Riku gave them an odd look. "He's not. It all seemed obvious to me, once I realized he'd still been around at the time."

"He was?" Sora said, just as Kairi asked "At what time?"

"It must have been pretty bad for him," Riku went on. "When he finally had control, he was having a panic attack." I felt the blood run out of Sora's face. Kairi was staring. "You did try apologizing, right, Sora?"

"I," Sora stammered, "he, I was asleep, I didn't – panic attack?"

"He was obviously there and feeling everything, and he didn't want to. It must have been like being molested by someone you thought was your friend."

_Exactly._

"Roxas?" Sora said.

Kairi frowned. "Wait a minute. Sora said you two didn't do anything."

"Oh, come on," I said. Sora, suddenly and finally in the back, was whispering _thank you_ in my head over and over. "Riku must have found every sensitive spot that you could hear about and maybe not think he was feeling up your boyfriend. I've gotten hickeys without getting that excited. Only Sora would try to get away with cheating on a technicality."

Kairi looked at Riku, shocked and hurt. Riku made himself look her in the eyes. "Like I said, I'm so sorry. There's no excuse."

"It wasn't _his_ fault. Sora put on this 'oh, I'm cute and frightened, protect me' act and turned him to goo."

They both looked at me, and one after the other, realized it was me and not Sora. Finally Riku said, "I did _not_ turn to goo."

"Helpless. Quivering. Goo," I said, poking him in the chest with each word. "I was there."

_It wasn't an act!_

"You exaggerated for effect," I said out loud, "since you like technicalities so much, and you know it damn well."

_Anyway, it wasn't that bad._

"Whatever. You knew what you were doing."

"Roxas," Riku said, "I really am sorry. I don't have an excuse for you, either. I wish that night had never happened." I felt a pang from Sora, a wordless spike of hurt.

"Of course you have an excuse. You have lots. You don't know how we work, you didn't know I was there, and you tried to stop it. And you already apologized. It's Sora I'm mad at. He. . ." I stood there for a minute, clenching and opening my fists, figuring out how to say it. "Maybe my friend molested me, by accident. But my brother held me down for it. On purpose."

_It wasn't! I couldn't hear you._

"You weren't listening! Do you know what that's like? If you don't listen to me, Sora, what am I? What's left?"

"Would you like to come inside?" Riku asked suddenly. His house was closest to the school, and we were there.

"Why?" I snapped.

"Because in there no one's home," he said, "and out here someone's eventually going to realize you're talking to yourself."

I looked at the house, and then at the people on the street who were turning their heads to watch five teenagers having an argument, thinking (so far) they were watching three teenagers having an argument. I sighed and went inside.

Riku had the back bedroom, small but happily decorated with posters, and books, and ribbons and trophies from swimming. It didn't really fit the mood. Riku sat on the bed, and I sat down with my back against it. Kairi took the chair. "So," she said awkwardly, "what are we all going to do?"

"We could go on like we were, for all I care," I said, "except I won't trust Sora anymore." If you can hear a voice in your head flinching, I did. "Riku?"

"I," Riku began, then dropped his eyes and thought for a while. "You're more important to Sora than I am."

I looked at him. For myself, I'd have been fine with Riku going back to his private angst and never touching Sora – or me! - again. But damn if I was going to let him blame the angst on me. "I can't believe you," I said. "Step up, for once in your life."

"What?"

"You just won't say how you feel, will you?" He looked at me, mistrusting. "Look," I said, "I was upset Saturday night, I said some things I didn't mean. I don't care what you do, as long as I'm asleep, and I keep telling you we're friends. Just say it." More kindly, "He can hear you."

Riku looked at me, then at Kairi, watching and looking very strange, and back. "I've loved him," he said. "I've known it since I was thirteen." The year of the raft. He'd wanted something amazing to happen. . .

"If you'd said something then, we could have avoided this whole mess," I said.

_No, we couldn't. It'd have just been the other way around._

"He likes you, too," I added, which was as much of Sora's feelings as I felt like interpreting for him. If he wanted to say more, he could come up front and do it himself.

"This is actually sweet, in a way." This was Namine. "Roxas for me and Sora for you. But wait a minute," Kairi now, "this won't work. _We_ know they're two people, but nobody else does. If people find out, they'll think Sora's cheating on me."

"You really think that's the problem with people finding out?" I asked.

"If that was all," Riku said, "you could just tell people about it from the start, and they'd just think you were a little strange. It's Sora and I that have the trouble. And Roxas." He pushed hair out of his eyes. "But I'm sure I could keep it secret."

"You fooled me up till a week ago," I agreed, "and you fooled Kairi. But Sora keeps secrets about as long as he keeps ice cream. I don't know whether the team would be worse to you or us."

"You," Riku said.

Kairi looked alarmed. "But Wakka's the captain! And Tidus wouldn't be like that."

"Wakka's okay," Riku agreed, "and he'd stop as much as he could. But most of them are ignorant, and some of them are bullies, and Tidus can be amazingly stupid when he's trying to impress people. And haven't you ever met his father?" He shook his head. "They wouldn't bother me as much, since I can swim faster than them _and_ kick their butts." He'd aborted a stronger word with a glance at Kairi. "They'd take it out on Sora."

"Well, I can kick _your_ butt if it comes to that," I said. Riku rolled his eyes, but it was true. I wasn't scared of any jock that was scared of him. "Even Sora'd surprise them."

"What if you stayed in control while you're at school?" Riku said. "I guess you can act like him much better than he can keep secrets. And you're the one who's friends with the guy and dating the girl."

"Yeah, but. . ." I don't do school. But there wasn't really any reason for that. I just didn't like it. I really didn't feel like doing Sora any favors, though. "Wait a minute, Riku. You're talking like I'm on your side. Kairi, what do _you_ think?"

"Side? Since when are we on sides, Roxas?"

"What? Well, I mean, Sora cheated on you, Kairi."

"Roxas, cheating is when someone betrays a relationship, and goes behind your back. It's not when they come to you and tell you everything. What Sora did. . ." Her words were forgiving, but she wasn't showing me her eyes. "He just realized that what we had was never real. It was just a good dream. I don't blame him for the truth. Neither should you."

That wasn't what I blamed him for. "Kairi, that's nice of you to say, but you're crying."

"Roxas, stop this. How can you fight with Sora?"

"Huh? You've fought with him yourself. You know how self-centered he can be."

"But he's part of you. He has your same heart."

"And that means I have to just take it whenever he acts like an ass?" Kairi stared at me like I was speaking a different language. I wondered what it was like in their head, because apparently it wasn't much like ours.

"They fight like any other pair of brothers," Riku explained, like he knew more about it than she did. Well, he thought he did. "Roxas told me it usually doesn't mean anything."

"It does this time," I said.

Riku shrugged, as if to say that made sense. "They're two people. There's no reason they have to get along all the time." Kairi stared at him. Getting an explanation from him was ridiculous. He was the one who didn't get why she was upset. But she couldn't tell him that because she didn't want to tell him why.

"Roxas," Kairi said. "We, the four of us, we've been through so much. I. . . I want to believe nothing could come between us. Any of us."

"For God's sake, Kairi, he's my brother. Just because I'm pissed at him doesn't mean I hate him forever."

_You said you would._ Oh. Had I really said that? _Roxas__, I'm really sorry. I'll never not listen to you again, I promise._ I didn't answer. Riku started to say something, and Namine shushed him.

In our head, Sora reached out his hand to me, and I took it. That was how we'd pictured it, when we were eight and Sora had first figured out I was really there. It was also the image we used when we learned to switch at will.

_Roxas__, are we okay?_

I hesitated. _Not yet._

_Okay._ His voice got faint. _I'm so tired._

_Then sleep._

And he slept. But as he faded into the back of our head, he mumbled, _I'm here if you need me._

My eyes refocused on Kairi and Riku. Namine was smiling at me. Riku had more of a bemused smirk. On principle, I remembered I was angry and changed my face to match. Riku laughed out loud, and I shrugged. Behind Namine's eyes, I thought I could see Kairi, still crying.


End file.
